The two businesses I would be describing are Tesco and Macmillan cancer. These two
contrasting organisations will have different structures and purposes as a business.
Therefore, I will be talking about the flat and tall structures/areas of the business such as
functional and geographical areas etc.
Organisational structures/purpose of structures: There are 4 types of areas/ structures that
build up and organisation. These areas are; functional, geographical, product and types of
customers.
Functional-Business is made up of parts that are designed to meet specific purposes for
example: Marketing, Finance, HR, IT etc.
Geographical- the business is made up of parts that deal with regional areas. For example,
the south-east branch or midlands region. Also, some organizations may create their own, or
use a combination of several structures to efficiently run business operations. Geographic
organizational structure is used for organizations that have offices or business units in
different geographic locations.
Product- Business is made up of departments based on the product it sells. E.g. Nike:
trainers, clothing, sports equipment etc.
Types of customer- The business is made up of areas that deal with different customers. EG
departments such as men, women, children etc.
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Functional Area
Functional areas are teams of employees who have similar skills and expertise. For example,
a company's sales department is a common functional area, and the staff in this area would
all be focused on selling the company's products.
Sales: Sales members generally work directly with prospective customers to help them
determine the best product for their needs and to place orders.
Marketing: Marketing team members prepare materials used by the sales function, such as
brochures and price lists, and manage outside advertising and promotional activities.
Finance and accounting: This function includes the team members who report on the
business results and plan for the future. Accounting team members take the company's sales
and cost information and create financial statements and reports. The accounting function
, includes those who invoice customers, pay bills, and calculate payroll amounts. Finance
team members analyse the results, prepare budgets, and manage cash flow.
Customer service: Customer service team members handle customer problems and
complaints after they have purchased the company's products. In a large company, this
might include a call centre where customers can call in for help via phone.
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quiz.html
Tesco:
Functional- Tesco need this structure to build up their organisation this is as for example,
when financing they need to keep on track of financial activity such as, sales/purchases,
financial information about the customer, financial state of the organisation and many more.
When marketing Tesco must satisfy their customers for them to come back. They do this by
seeing what the customers want, developing promotions on their product and by defining
the features and prices of the product.
Geographical- This is an important structure for Tesco. This is as, rather than having to
establish working relationships with people on the other side of the world through email
and telephone, employees in a geographical structure often work side by side with
personnel from various departments. the performance of individual markets and work
groups is simplified under this structure, as metrics such as revenues, profit margins, costs,
and performance improvements can be tagged to specific regions. This is needed by Tesco as
it is a global business which attract and sell to customers around the whole world.
Product- At Tesco’s, structuring by product involves organising the business into
departments, each of which focuses on a different product. Similarly, a business may be
divided by the type of customer each team targets. Employees too, regardless of the type of
their duties, are also assigned according to the product or customer their work relates to.
For example, in Tesco’s they sell products like Food, clothes, and technology. For each of
those different products they have employees assigned to the department (e.g. fruit and veg
staff for food) they are well knowledged/known for.
Type of customer- Tesco has many different types of customers which go to their stores.
These customers are such as, men, women, juniors etc. For example, in their clothes
department they do different sized clothes from baby clothes to juniors to adults. They do
accessories such as women’s jewelleries to men’s accessories such as watches. They
suit/serve different variety of customer; this is so they bring in as many different types of
customers to the business to shop.
Macmillan: